Re: Plastic Gear Kits

These arrived a while ago, but I just now got a chance to check 'em out. Nice selection of gears shown below. 9 pinions on the bottom, 11 intermediate gears above them (larger gears with molded-in pinion), 5 crown gears on the left. Only one worm gear though. FYI, this was the 46-gear assortment, which contained 47 gears. All 3 bags I received appear to have identical contents.

Building a geartrain from scratch is a rite of passage for REAL roboticists!

Re: Plastic Gear Kits

We use masculine pronouns (he, him, his) when gender is not known or irrelevant.
Feminine pronouns (she, her, hers) always refer to the feminine.
We never use the neuter (it, it, its) in reference to people.
That's how we do it in English.
But, in deference to the hyper-sensitive: REAL roboticists make their own.

Re: Plastic Gear Kits

Regarding the usage of their;

usage: 1 The word they (with its counterparts them, their, and themselves) as a singular pronoun to refer to a person of unspecified sex has been used since at least the 16th century. In the late 20th century, as the traditional use of he to refer to a person of either sex came under scrutiny on the grounds of sexism, this use of they has become more common. It is now generally accepted in contexts where it follows an indefinite pronoun such as anyone, no one,

Re: Plastic Gear Kits

It had been so used, as noted, though not acceptably, but this cockeyed practice has come in vogue with the aforementioned hyper-sensitive crowd. Its "general acceptability" (Says who? The 'grammarians' at Ms. magazine?) is a matter of conjecture at best.

Declining standards, dimished expectations; hang a label on it and the unacceptable becomes acceptable.

From George Orwell's "1984", Syme, who was working on the 11th Edition of the Newspeak dictionary, said,
"'It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.'
"'In your heart you'd prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning. You don't grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?'
"''Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we're not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak,' he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. 'Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?'"